She plays a fictional doctor on television, but Grey's Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo has taken aim at real-world television doctors like Dr Phil and Dr Oz for their "stupid, selfish" comments about the coronavirus pandemic.
Talk show host Dr Phil recently backpedalled after likening COVID-19 deaths to those caused by car accidents or smoking. Meanwhile, Dr Oz said the concept of re-opening schools was an "appetizing opportunity" because it "may only cost two to three percent in terms of total mortality". He later said he "misspoke," and hadn't meant to upset people.
Pompeo tweeted: "The old white guy TV docs who say stupid selfish shit should yes ...walk that shit right back to your lazy boys and sit your stupid asses down in your living rooms on your golf courses where you live...tired out of touch old fools don't get me started today."
The actor, who plays Dr Meredith Grey, acknowledged some might call her an "out of touch TV doctor," before saying the "careless statements" made defied the Hippocratic oath to 'do no harm' all doctors must take.
While Pompeo did not mention anyone by name at first, she later made sure her 1.7 million Twitter followers knew exactly who she was targeting by retweeting a post that featured doctors Oz, Drew and Phil.
The original poster said they would only be calling them by their first names until they "started behaving like real doctors".
"I love this because they have been so busy in their dressing rooms getting their faces powdered and worrying about their ratings ...they have no idea what doctors and healthcare professionals on the front lines actually do or they just don’t care," Pomeo wrote.
As well as slamming television doctors, Pompeo has been retweeting the posts of healthcare professionals on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic, asking them how they're doing and offering to buy them lunch.
